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I witnessed a tire coming loose once and it was due to loose lug nuts on the left side of the vehicle. A guy I worked with had this happen on the right front of his vehicle due to loose lug nuts. Many years ago, the left side of some vehicles used to have reverse thread lug nuts. I am not sure if all vehicles had reverse threads on the left side at the time though. Not sure why they changed from it.
23 or 24 years ago I had a friend who caught one. He was a steel erector in Orange County CA who had a substantial business in Las Vegas. His solution to traveling between the two was to beat lit down I15 at 2AM.
Big heavy SUV likely doing 100 mph or so. Got hit by a full wheel off a semi. Rolled 4 or 5 times. Got off with bruises. SUV utterly demolished. They had the wheel but never found out who lost it.
Back in the 1990's I was driving a commercial set of doubles north on I-81 in Staunton VA. One of our trucks was heading South and I waved at him (I knew him, he was a friend). Five minutes later he was dead from a flying, mounted, truck tire. There was a North bound truck behind me that had just had a tire replaced at the truck stop in Fairfield VA (about fifteen minutes earlier). They never tightened the lug nuts and the driver (which was supposed to pre-trip his vehicle) did not catch the mistake. The loose mounted tire probably weighed about 250 or 300 pounds and the medium strip on I-81 has a small hill of dirt. The Northbound truck was probably doing 65 or 70 mph. It went airborne and hit my friend's driver side windshield post and proceeded to enter the cab. It split my friend in half and killed him instantly.
Several times on I-95 I saw modular home haulers lose tires. Of course they were about the same size as car tires. But, what surprised me is how much motorist ignored them - they never understood the danger they were in. I saw a few of them barely miss traffic going in the opposite direction. I think most drivers are simply not looking or anticipating that kind of hazard.
One hazard, that is more dangerous than a loose truck tire; is a loose set of tandem wheels. Many of the large trailers have sliding rear wheels and they have pins that have to be relocked. Drivers slide them to adjust the weight of their trailer. If drivers are in a hurry and do not check there is a chance the pins did not lock. If the rig goes on the road and the driver hits the brakes; all eight wheels and the two axels can go flying out from under the trailer. No car or pickup would survive the collision with that massive steel and rubber. I saw one little sports car traveling at 80 mph in NM on I-40 hit one. There was not too many large pieces of the sportscar left and the driver did not stand a chance. In one year alone I spotted five sets of tandems that came loose on the highway (some years I do not see any). But it is a real danger and a very good reason not to tailgate large trucks!
Many years ago, the left side of some vehicles used to have reverse thread lug nuts. I am not sure if all vehicles had reverse threads on the left side at the time though. Not sure why they changed from it.
That was pretty much exclusively a Mopar thing from maybe 1960 to the early 1970s. The idea was that nuts would be self-retaining, if not self-tightening. (It was taken, I think, from the big single-nut spinner wheels used in racing; I have a car with those.) Not sure if it saved more problems than it created, since it meant double the number of parts and was forever confusing mechanics or getting screwed up by amateurs who didn't know the difference.
I do see a lot of commercial trucks with a thin stripe of paint across the nut and stud-end, so you can tell at a glance if any have loosened. Time-consuming extra step, though.
Owning and driving a vehicle is a huge responsibility.
I just drove 1100 miles in about 3 days...........checked my lugnuts and overall condition of the vehicle before leaving and once into the trip. The trip convinced me that, for various reasons, most people driving are just poor overall drivers......scary, clueless and guided by emotions as opposed to logic, reason and good driving technique.
There's a good Youtube video of mishaps with tires, one shows a guy pumping gas when a tire comes barreling up and knocks him down. Others show a tire bouncing and going airborne and then it hits the windshield of the dash cam car.
I had that happen once. I was riding a bicycle on the path next to the highway (Jersey barrier between). I hear a loud BANG, look over, there's a bus, and one tire about 20' in the air floating towards me. I jumped off the bike and the tire landed right where I was. It all happened in slow motion, but I think I could have been seriously injured.
That was pretty much exclusively a Mopar thing from maybe 1960 to the early 1970s. The idea was that nuts would be self-retaining, if not self-tightening...
International also employed this approach. Didn't really work though, as a friend of mine had one of his front tires come off his Scout at an intersection stop in Seattle back in the 80's. Tire rolled through and ran into another car.
No damage, no big deal was made of it like there would be, no doubt, today.
While sad unless something turns up there isn't any sort of criminal charge to book the guy on. Even if local DA does try to come up with something doubt if a court would convict, and or said conviction would withstand appeal.
Now OTOH civil action by the deceased man's family or estate is another matter. If the guy was a family man with wife and kids, then all bets are off.
What could they do in Civil?
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